To be honest I don’t blame Walsh or Cruz from arguing back with MPs. At the end of the day, it was government that told airlines that they MUST exhaust all cost saving measures before they would consider any bail outs; this was in response to the Branson VS debate. MPs have voiced their opinions based on their constituents concerns and not always based on fact. Government should have done more for aviation specifically from the outset but they haven’t. If I was Walsh I would be pretty hacked off as well especially when VS, EZY, Airports and even Jet2 and TUI have announced and exercised cuts with little to no criticism at all.
Any shareholder who doesn’t understand the cost to an airline that “legacy” (not a term I like but one that is common in industry) crew can have, really need to open their eyes. The business cannot move forward with such disparities in crew salaries.
However I do agree that changes to the t&cs are questionable although we don’t know fully what they are because they haven’t been fully released to my knowledge.